Grudges: The Burden We Choose to Carry (#761)
A segment broadcast on CBS News Sunday Morning prompted me to reflect on why we hold on to grievances, what they cost us, and the difference between forgiveness and simply letting go.
Correspondent Susan Spencer's report Letting Go: Why Holding Onto Grudges Can Be Damaging, explored why people maintain grievances for years and how forgiveness can help them move forward.
There was a wonderfully provocative description of a grudge:
Holding a grudge is like setting yourself on fire and hoping the other person dies of smoke inhalation.
It is a rather dramatic image, but it captures an important truth.
The person against whom we hold a grudge may be entirely unaware of our continuing resentment.
They may have forgotten the incident, moved on with their life, or never understood that they had offended us in the first place.
Meanwhile, we continue to carry the grievance, revisiting the circumstances, rehearsing arguments, imagining conversations that will probably never take place, and occasionally enjoying the prospect of some future vindication.
Who, then, is actually suffering?
Why Do We Hold Grudges?
A grudge usually begins with a perceived injustice.
Someone has disappointed us, betrayed our trust, treated us unfairly, embarrassed us, or failed to acknowledge our contribution.
Our initial reaction may be entirely justified.
Anger is a natural response to mistreatment, and resentment can serve a useful purpose by alerting us to behavior that we should not tolerate.
The problem arises when a temporary emotional response becomes a permanent feature of our lives.
The CBS report described a woman who had maintained a grievance against a high school friend for decades following a disagreement over a boy when they were teenagers.
It also featured a journalist who remembered the theft of her birthday cake during her college years.
A grudge does not necessarily diminish with the passage of time.
Sometimes, the more frequently we revisit an unpleasant experience, the more firmly it becomes embedded in our personal history.
We may even begin to define ourselves by what happened to us.
The Stories We Tell Ourselves
One of the most interesting aspects of the CBS report was its discussion of the narratives we construct around our grievances.
Psychotherapist Nancy Colier has explored how these personal narratives can keep us psychologically trapped.
When someone offends us, we develop an account of what happened.
In that account, we are usually the injured party, and the other person is responsible for the injustice.
With each retelling, the story can become more firmly established.
We selectively remember the details that support our interpretation, while overlooking information that might challenge it.
Eventually, the story may become more important to us than the original incident.
This does not mean that the injustice was imaginary or that our feelings were unjustified.
It means that our interpretation of an event can acquire a life of its own.
Perhaps the most difficult question to ask ourselves is whether we are holding on to a grievance because it still serves a useful purpose or because we have become emotionally invested in being right.
The Cost of Carrying a Grudge
There is a physiological dimension to all of this.
Anger and resentment activate the body's stress-response systems.
When we repeatedly revisit an upsetting experience, we may experience some of the same emotional and physiological reactions that accompanied the original event.
The CBS report discussed research associating persistent resentment with cardiovascular problems, depression, and anxiety.
Such associations do not necessarily establish that grudges directly cause these conditions, but they suggest that sustained hostility can have consequences beyond our immediate emotional state.
A grudge also consumes time and attention.
Every hour spent mentally rehearsing an old injustice is an hour that cannot be devoted to something more constructive.
And there is another cost that is less easily measured: a persistent grievance can influence our relationships with people who had nothing to do with the original incident.
Someone who has been betrayed may become suspicious of others.
Someone who has been treated unfairly may begin to interpret ordinary disagreements as further evidence of injustice.
In this way, one person's behavior can influence our relationships with many others.
We allow the original offender to occupy far more of our lives than they deserve.
Forgiveness Is Not the Same as Excusing Bad Behavior
I think this is where discussions about grudges sometimes become unnecessarily simplistic.
We are frequently encouraged to forgive and forget, as though the two actions are inseparable.
They are not.
Forgiveness does not require us to pretend that an injustice never occurred.
It does not mean that unacceptable behavior suddenly becomes acceptable.
Nor does it oblige us to restore a relationship with someone who has repeatedly demonstrated that they cannot be trusted.
It is entirely possible to forgive someone while deciding that we no longer wish to have that person in our lives.
Similarly, forgiveness does not eliminate accountability.
If someone has behaved dishonestly, abused a position of authority, or caused harm to others, there may be very good reasons to pursue an explanation, demand corrective action, or seek appropriate consequences.
We should distinguish between the emotional burden of resentment and the practical responsibility to address wrongdoing.
One is a personal response.
The other may be a moral or professional obligation.
We can relinquish the first without abandoning the second.
Grudges, Principles, and the Pursuit of Justice
This distinction is particularly important in professional life.
Consider a situation in which a university administrator makes a decision without consulting the people who will be affected by it.
Faculty members may feel that their professional judgment has been disregarded and that established principles of shared governance have been compromised.
If they subsequently challenge the decision, are they holding a grudge?
Not necessarily.
There is an important difference between pursuing an issue because we resent an individual and pursuing it because we believe that a principle has been violated.
The distinction lies partly in our objectives.
If our principal motivation is to embarrass someone, undermine their reputation, or obtain personal satisfaction from their discomfort, resentment may have become the driving force.
If our objective is to establish what happened, identify procedural shortcomings, ensure accountability, and prevent similar problems from recurring, we are engaged in something quite different.
Of course, the two motivations can coexist.
We are human, after all.
The challenge is to recognize when our personal feelings begin to interfere with our ability to make a reasoned judgment.
Perhaps a useful test is to ask ourselves whether we would continue to pursue the matter if the person responsible were replaced tomorrow.
If the answer is yes, the issue may be one of principle rather than personality.
It is possible to be persistent without being vindictive, critical without being hostile, and determined without being consumed by resentment.
Indeed, the ability to separate personal feelings from institutional responsibilities is an essential characteristic of effective leadership.
The Importance of Goodwill
There is a word that deserves more attention in discussions of forgiveness:
Goodwill.
Goodwill does not require affection, friendship, or even agreement.
It is a willingness to approach others without automatically assuming the worst about their intentions.
We can disagree strongly with someone's decisions while acknowledging that they may have acted in what they believed to be the best interests of their organization.
We can criticize their conduct without attacking their character.
And we can remain open to the possibility that our own understanding of a situation may be incomplete.
Goodwill also makes reconciliation possible.
Sometimes, an apology, an explanation, or a sincere acknowledgment of harm is sufficient to resolve a grievance that has persisted for years.
At other times, reconciliation may be impossible because the other person refuses to accept responsibility or because the damage is too substantial.
Even then, we can choose not to allow resentment to dominate our thoughts.
Goodwill is not necessarily something we extend because another person deserves it.
Sometimes, it is something we cultivate because of the kind of person we wish to be.
Letting Go Without Giving Up
As I have grown older, I have become increasingly conscious of the value of time.
At 25, it is easy to imagine that we have an almost unlimited number of years in which to resolve disagreements, repair relationships, and correct perceived injustices.
At 75, the arithmetic is rather different.
I am not suggesting that we should become indifferent to injustice or abandon principles simply because life is short.
Quite the opposite.
I believe we should become more selective about the matters to which we devote our limited time and energy.
Some issues are worth pursuing, even when doing so is uncomfortable or unpopular.
Others are not worth another moment of our attention.
The difficulty lies in distinguishing between them.
Perhaps the most useful question is not whether we were wronged, but what we hope to accomplish by continuing to revisit the experience.
Are we seeking justice, understanding, reconciliation, or meaningful change?
Or are we simply keeping an old wound open?
The answer may tell us whether our persistence is constructive or whether it has become a grudge.
A Final Thought
I return to the image with which I began:
Setting ourselves on fire in the hope that someone else will suffer from the smoke.
It is a memorable metaphor because it reminds us that resentment often inflicts its greatest damage on the person who carries it.
But I would add an important qualification.
Extinguishing the fire does not mean pretending that nobody lit the match.
We can remember what happened, learn from the experience, insist on accountability, and take steps to prevent a recurrence without allowing the incident to dominate the rest of our lives.
Forgiveness is not necessarily an act of generosity toward the person who offended us.
It may simply be a decision to reclaim our own peace of mind.
And goodwill is the recognition that, even when we disagree profoundly with others, we need not allow those disagreements to define us.
We do not have to abandon our principles to abandon a grudge.
Perhaps that is the most important distinction of all.
Reference
Comments